Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Yet another question...

This is topic Yet another question... in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

Would it be foolish to try and pitch serial short stories as your first published material?

I ask because I just finished revising a story that I'd completed some time ago but was unhappy with. I like this version much better (much better! I mean, the whole first quarter (or so) of the story positively reeked of info dump!), but it ends with a kind of question mark at the end. Sort of like a "The End?" and I find myself interested in continuing the saga, only I'm not sure I have enough material to write a novel. Besides, the idea of serial shorts kind of appeals to me.

Do you think any publisher/magazine would be interested in such a thing? Or should I just end it definitively? Or should I not and try to continue in a novel? Or should I just....okay, I'm out, but, I'll probably think of more inane questions as I go along.

CVG

PS--I'll soon be posting the story in the Feedback section, if anyone's interested. In a while, at least. After I've taken out some of the bugs, and spellchecked.
That sort of stuff.

[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited December 20, 2003).]

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Cris, it would depend on how open-ended your ending is, but I'd recommend that you go ahead and try to sell it to a magazine as is.

If it gets published, then write the next short, and send it to the same editor, and the next and so on.

Magazine editors buy one piece at a time, though they will serialize novels (usually by well-known writers) as well.

If you see it as a series of shorts, then write them and sell them individually. Once you've published them in magazines, you can approach a book editor about putting them all together into one volume.

I hope this makes sense.

Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :

There certainly have been cases where series of short stories have been sold before they were all written, but I guess they are all by well known authors.

I would have thought, however, that it couldn't hurt to mention in your covering letter to editors yuou submit the first story to that you're working on follow-up stories... it wouldn't commit the editor to buying them, but they'll like to have the option of stories to buy that are probably of an above-average quality (i.e. they know the author and world the stories are set in is something they would buy...) in future.